Mixed Embeddedness Revisited: A Conclusion to the Symposium

Robert C. Kloosterman; Jan Rath

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/8625

Authors

Robert C. Kloosterman University of Amsterdam http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9426-1759
Robert C. Kloosterman is Professor in Economic Geography and Planning at the University of Amsterdam and is a member of the board of the Centre for Urban Studies of that same university. He has advised the Dutch national Social-Economic Council and the OECD on the issue of migrant entrepreneurship. He has published extensively on how the social, economic and cultural transition that gathered pace after 1980 has affected cities. He has been working with Jan Rath in the field of migrant entrepreneurship since the early 1990s, and they are currently completing a book in which the mixed embeddedness approach is further elaborated and empirically corroborated.
Jan Rath University of Amsterdam; Center for Urban Studies and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1961-2763
Jan Rath is holding a Chair in Urban Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and is also associated with the Center for Urban Studies and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES). He is, moreover, the European Chair of International Metropolis and an associate of the World Economic Forum. He has been an advisor of a wide array of local, national and supranational governmental organizations and civic society institutions, including the European Commission, the OECD, the United Nations (notably IOM, UNHCR, UNCTAD and its Population Division). He has been working with Robert C. Kloosterman in the field of migrant entrepreneurship since the early 1990s, and they are currently completing a book in which the mixed embeddedness approach is further elaborated and empirically corroborated.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/8625

Keywords:

migrant entrepreneurship, urban economies, mixed embeddedness, institutions

Abstract

This essay concludes the Symposium on the mixed embeddedness approach to migrant entrepreneurship by briefly outlining the development of mixed embeddedness, reflecting on its position within the international field of migrant entrepreneurship research, and by highlighting its key elements. We first discuss how the mixed embeddedness approach came into being. Thereafter we highlight the basic components of the approach and we argue why such an approach should be preferred to other, more mono-causal approaches. Our contribution concludes by pointing to the adjustments that the approach has undergone since its introduction in the late 1990s.

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Mixed Embeddedness Revisited: A Conclusion to the Symposium

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